"Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake, Stepped on the gas instead of the brake"

Gravestones should generally be somber or reflective, so in fiction, it's common to put funny epitaphs on them. It could be a poem or a record or suggestion of an ironic or strange death. It could be a pun based on the late character's name. E.g.: "Paul E. Nate - A wonderful husband, father and florist." This is especially common in video games, as the player may blindly ignore the graveyard, or be too busy fighting zombies or whatever. Can be used to as a Shout-Out or a Take That, often suggesting the fate of a character from another, rival work. Can be an example of Truth in Television. Related to, but not to be confused with, Black Comedy.

Examples:

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Comic Books

Jean Grey of the X-Men is known for her habit of dying and coming back to life. One comic shows Cyclops walking away from her grave stone, which says Jean Grey: BRB◊.

In one Amazing Spider-Man #308 Spidey fights the Taskmaster in a derelict cemetery; in one large shot of the villain, he's shown looming over headstones with the names of famous Spider-Man artists: Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr, Ross Andru, Gil Kane, Jr Jr, and Ron Frenz. The panel can be seen here.

Film

In The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, the MacManus Brothers, Connor and Murphy, visit the grave of their friend and partner, Rocco. As they silently pray, Murphy notices that the picture on the tomb is Rocco's mugshot, and that a painted-out police arm is holding his long hair up out of his face in a ridiculous fashion. All reverence quickly disappears.

In This Is Spinal Tap, David St. Hubbins suggests an epitaph for his own grave at one point: "Here Lies David St. Hubbins. And Why Not?"

Live Action TV

The Catherine Tate Show featured the extremely popular character of Lauren Cooper, a mouthy schoolgirl whose catchphrase is "Am I bovvered?" (bothered). In the 2007 Christmas special, she is kayaking and says this to a man who warns her to stay away from a particular stretch of water. She ignores his advice, and is killed when her boat goes over a waterfall. Her friends are then seen standing by her tombstone, which is inscribed with the words "I still ain't bovvered".

As always, there is an example from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When Buffy dies at the end of season 5, her tombstone reads Buffy Anne Summers, beloved sister, devoted friend. She saved the world. A lot.

In Greg the Bunny, Count Blah (who has a Verbal Tic of saying "blah" after sentences) visited the grave of his wife, which reads, "Beloved Wife, Blah. R.I.P.B."

In the reunion movie The Wild Wild West Revisited, James West and Artemus Gordon are shown the grave of their arch-nemesis Migelito Loveless, as made by Migelito's son: A Rushmore-sized carving of the man's last name in the side of a mountain, with tiny little plots staked out for the two heroes in its shadow.

In Blackadder Goes Forth, Blackadder says he wishes his tombstone to be inscribed:

Here lies Edmund Blackadder,

And he's bloody annoyed.

In Friends, Phoebe once mentions that she wants her epitaph to be "Phoebe Buffay, Buried Alive".

On The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon bought a monogrammed funeral urn for Leonard in case his deviated septum surgery didn't end well. It read "Here lie the ashes of Leonard Hofstadter. He thought he was right, but his roommate knew better." He also bought one for himself, which read "I'm with stupid".

Tabletop Games

Dungeons & Dragons module I6 Ravenloft. The tombs under Castle Ravenloft had a number of funny inscriptions on their individual crypts.

"Artista DeSlop — Court Ceiling Painter"

"Prince Aerial Du Plumette (Aerial the Heavy)"

"Artank Swilovich: Here interred and with great mourning courtesy of the Barovian Wine Distillers Brotherhood."

"Sir Sedrik Spinwitovich (Admiral Spinwitovich). Confused though he was, he built the greatest naval force ever assembled in a land locked country."

"Ivan DeRose, Champion of Winter Dog Racing. The race may go to the swift, but vengeance is for the loser's relatives."

Final Fantasy I had a tombstone reading, "Here lies Erdrick," after the hero (well, hero's ancestor) of competing game company Enix's Dragon Quest I.

In the original Japanese version and the Dawn of Souls English translation, the tombstone read "here lies Link".

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura had these in every graveyard in the game, with inscriptions like. "I told you I was sick!" "Here lies an atheist all dressed up and no place to go." "Quoeth thy Raven nevermore." "Hey who blew out the candle? Hello?" and "There was a light at the end of the tunnel, unfortunately that light was a train."

There was also a hidden 'Fan Graveyard' as an Easter Egg, where forum members familiar to the devs were eulogized.

The Elder Scrolls Legends: Battlespire had another whole graveyard of these, and this graveyard was referenced to in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard.

Neverwinter Nights has a tombstone that reads along the lines of "Here lies X, who scoffed at the warnings of lesser men and built this fine tower. He discovered his error a few weeks later. Beware of trolls."

The graveyard in Nashkel in the first Baldur's Gate game is full of these, including an Easter Egg that'll trigger a Bonus Boss fight if you click on it too many times.

Baldur's Gate beats this one to death in one town. You get things like "Here lies X, who was killed by (long list of summonable creatures)" followed by the Latin for "do not call up what you cannot put down", implying that this was a hapless summoner who didn't know what he was getting into.

The city of Haven in Dragon Age: Origins has a graveyard filled with humorous tombstones, including some Shout Outs to others on the the page. ("Sensal Gaheris: 775-798, 798-801, 801-805, 805-807, 807-809 (VERIFIED), 'BEST TAX EVADER EVER' — CH")

Betrayal at Krondor had a mix of ordinary and humorous quips on the gravestones, and you were also able to dig up the graves. Most graves had nothing special, some had hidden items hinted at by the eulogy (for example, a gravestone reading "Drank his milk every day" hid a few vials of milk), and some had "The fiend beneath this stone is trapped by dirt, not by death": Zombies!

Most people who played The Oregon Trail as a kid put "pepperoni and cheese" on their tombstones. The others put profanities on theirs.

Chapter 5 of StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge takes place in a Wild West setting, where you can find several humorous (and rhyming) epitaphs in a local mining town. "Here lies Lucky Larry. His luck ran out and now he's buried."

Sanitarium has plenty, mostly for developers. There's also the grave of Joseph Bruener, a character from War Wind II (a game which Sanitarium's developers had previously worked on).

"This one says Travis W. Nice Goddamn Cat..." Granted, this was on a level that's basically a mangled bunch of all the previous levels, so randomness like this is expected.

MOTHER 3 has a hurricane of "grave" puns. Also, a "NO ZOMBIES ALLOWED" sign at the cemetery entrance.

Mortal Kombat 3 features tombstones of the game's developers, as well as one reading "Cage", presumably a reference to Johnny Cage, the character who died before the events of the game.

Neopets' first Video Game release, Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, lets you read the unusually jovial tombstones around crypts.

The graveyards in New Austin and West Elizabeth sometimes boast humorous tombstones such as one reading "Unknown person - So drunk he did not remember dying" or "If you are reading this, I must be dead". The Coot's Chapel graveyard manages to fly a few past the radar with inscriptions such as "Never try to milk a bull."

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories' Staunton graveyard is chucked full of these. Hilariously, it becomes increasingly populated as your protagonist kills off selected characters throughout the storyline.

On a more minor note, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas features "R.I.P. Opposition" tombstones at a San Fierro memorial, referring to the rivalry between Rockstar North and developers of "GTA clones".

In the Xbox Indie game Doom & Destiny, there are a bunch of these in the graveyard underneath Ben's house.

Pirate101 gives us a few while looking for Honest Ned's grave in the lighthouse graveyard. If the player has Brigus Latro as a companion, he'll get annoyed and hang a lampshade on it.

Harvest_event has a tombstone reading "RIP The Tenth Class," a reference to players constantly clamoring to discover/add a hidden tenth class or the removed Civilian class from the Hunted game mode.

Deathcam screenshots are a more ephemeral, digital form of this, since they always read "You were killed by [killer's name]." Some players would have therefore take on names like "An Expired Sandvich" or "Irony" specifically to have fun with this feature. More bawdy players would use names that cause the deathcam screenshot to imply death by more raunchy means for much the same reason.

The opening titles of several of The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episodes.

The last one to use them actually had a tombstone reading "Amusing Tombstones", signaling the retirement of the gag.

The SpongeBob SquarePants episode where Mr. Krabs goes to a graveyard to dig up a million-dollar hat. Squidward was mourning at a tombstone and when Mr. Krabs came to see who it was, he sees that the engraving reads "Here lie Squidwards hopes and dreams." In the same graveyard, there's "Diver Dan", whose tombstone has carved scuba gear on it; "Stupid" next to "I'm With Stupid", complete with pointing hand, and most importantly, the "#1" shaped tombstone of Smitty Werbenjaegermanjensen, whose name extends off the name plaque.

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